‘They never should have been fired’: What happened that night on X-Factor?
By RNZ Life reporters
X-Factor judge Natalia Kills said she was “disgusted” and her husband, Willy Moon, said it gave Psycho killer vibes – all because a contestant on the New Zealand reality TV show decided to wear a suit.
The scene became one of the most significant reality TV scandals in years, says The Reality Machine RNZ podcast host Dylan Reeve.
Back in 2015, British popstar Kills and her husband, Kiwi singer songwriter Moon, were recruited as the new “mean judges” on the live reality TV talent show.
Joe Irvine sang Ella Fitzgerald’s Cry Me a River in the final performance of the night. After a perfectly fine performance, praised by the other mentor/judges Mel Blatt and Stan Walker, Kills decided to dial up the venom.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m just going to state the obvious, we have a doppelganger in our midst,” she began.
“I am disgusted at how much you’ve copied my husband. From the hair to the suit, do you not have any value or respect for originality?” she asked Irvine on live TV.
The Spinoff founder Duncan Grieve was writing about the show for the website at the time.
“It was as if no one had ever worn a suit before Willy Moon, whose schtick was wearing a suit,” he says. “It was over the top.”
Moon added to Kills’ slapdown of Irvine: “It’s like Norman Bates dressing up in his mother’s clothing. It’s just a little bit creepy and I feel like you’re gonna stick someone’s skin to your face and kill everyone in the audience.”
Kills added: “You’re a laughing stock, it’s cheesy, it’s disgusting. I personally found it artistically atrocious. I am embarrassed to be sitting here in your presence having to even dignify you with my opinion.”
The studio audience were in uproar as Irvine responded: “Thank you Natalia, you’re beautiful”. Despite strong public support, he was eliminated two weeks later.
John McDonald, then head of production at TV3, was running the show that night.
“I went straight to their dressing rooms and I said ‘What just happened? What did you just do?’” McDonald told The Reality Machine.
“Things had gone so wonderfully well to that point and I genuinely liked Willy and Natalia. I have a different view of that show from TV3 main leadership at that point,” he said.
“We never should have fired those guys.
“Within a couple of minutes Natalia was saying, ‘Grab a camera. I will go to Joe’s dressing room, I’ll take flowers, I’ll apologise, I’ll get down on one knee, I’ll tell him I’m so sorry about that and we will move on’.”
That’s what McDonald thought would unfold –that that would be the following night’s episode. But the horse had bolted, two days later the couple were fired and fled the country. They landed to a throng of paparazzi peppering them about the incident at LAX.
The pair were replaced by Shelton Woolright from Blindspott and Aussie singer/actress Natalie Bassingthwaighte.
Andrew Szusterman was in charge of entertainment at MediaWorks at the time, including TV3.
He says despite what one may think, it did not work for ratings.
“Those that think it had a ratings surge it did anything but. It actually had a negative effect on that season. The ratings took a tumble after that happened.”
As soon as the scene went down, his phone blew up, he recalls.
“It was chaos.”
Podcast host Reeve, who has 20-plus years in the television business, reckons the couple wouldn’t have been directed to be so harsh.
“Generally speaking, there probably isn’t a lot of explicit direction, because … people are not good actors usually so the more you tell them … often the worse the outcomes get.”
He reckons the spray just went far beyond what Kiwis are comfortable with – it was bullying live on television.
“The way it happened just stepped past what we were down with. I think ‘cause it came out of nowhere.”
Kills changed her name to Teddy Sinclair in 2015, The Spinoff reported, and started her own band, Cruel Youth, with Moon the following year. She went on to write songs for Rihanna and Madonna.
In 2021, the New Zealand Herald reported that the couple lost everything in a fire that destroyed their New York apartment.